Marvel Unintentionally Helped Make Redux Redux A Better Sci-Fi Movie, According To The Directors

"Redux Redux," the latest feature film from "Block Island Sound" directors Kevin and Matthew McManus, is a must-watch lo-fi sci-fi flick for those desperate for a unique spin on a multiverse story. The movie centers on Irene (Michaela McManus), a distraught mother who is traveling through parallel universes trying to find one where her daughter is still alive. If she winds up in one where her daughter remains a victim of a serial killer, she tracks him down and kills him before jumping into a different universe to try again. "Redux Redux" provides the multiverse trend with the horror movie it so desperately needs, and utilizes a high-concept premise to examine how unchecked grief and a quest for vengeance can erode what's left of our humanity.

Revenge films are already a flourishing subgenre, but "Redux Redux" feels wholly unique thanks to its multiverse connection — a connection that seemed like a pie in the sky dream when the McManus Brothers first conceived of the idea over a decade ago, long before the average viewer had an understanding of what a multiverse story actually was.

An explosion of multiversal stories "ended up being a super helpful thing," co-writer/director Matthew McManus tells me. "We [initially] felt like we'd really have to bring the audience to water and educate them about the subgenre." In earlier drafts of the story, Irene was going to provide a voiceover explaining how the multiverse functions, but thanks to Marvel, DC, and Oscar-winners like "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and "Everything Everywhere All At Once" giving audiences a primer on how the multiverse works, it allowed a film like "Redux Redux" to make the best movie possible by not having to get hung up on exposition.

"Once people knew what the multiverse was and it became so known in the larger world and people understood it through media, it gave us an opportunity to really strip out this whole monologue that really got into the weeds of exactly what the multiverse was, how it worked, and all that jazz," says co-writer/director Kevin McManus. "And it gave us an opportunity to really just put it in the hands of the audience to figure it out every step of the way, which is really fun for us. It's always what you want to do: be able to take as much exposition out as humanly possible."

Instead of bogging down the audience with an infodump to set up the world of "Redux Redux," being able to establish it as a multiverse story and understand that the audience knows what that means allows for a stronger focus on Irene's journey and the evolution of her character as she continues to jump through parallel universes. While I do not doubt the McManus Bros. could have successfully told this story without Marvel providing a collective shorthand, allowing the audience to immediately join Irene on her quest and understand things through context clues makes for a more powerful viewing experience.

"We were pretty nervous as [the multiverse] was really taking off and [becoming] so ubiquitous that people were getting kind of tired of the subgenre, and we thought, 'Oh man, we're running out of time to be able to make this movie,'" Matthew McManus tells me. Fortunately, with "Avengers: Doomsday" heading our way and audience anticipation still sky-high, "Redux Redux" is being released at the perfect time.

According to Kevin McManus, "Redux Redux" was born out of a desire to tell a multiverse story where the universes weren't dramatically different from one another like what is shown in something like Marvel's "Loki" series, but where in an infinite amount of universes, the changes were going to be infinitely small. "There are Easter eggs throughout it of what those changes will be in a small way, which was fun on the page, and then on the day when you're shooting the same location, you're like, 'Oh, we have to change the coffee mug and the menu and make sure we don't blow it for the next scene and then we're going back to the other side of the world,'" he says. 

With that comes unique challenges, especially on an indie film, and especially for creatives like the McManus Brothers, who admit to me that they are not always great with continuity. As Kevin explains, "We're always sort of shirking the responsibility of continuity going like, 'Well, if people are paying attention [to those details], then you have bigger trouble with your story,' and maybe it's just the trouble of not actually hiring a script supervisor [laughs]." Fortunately, the multiverse provides the perfect cover for any possible mistakes. "I'm sure there's also some true continuity errors that we'll just blame on the multiverse," jokes Kevin. "That's the multiverse for you," Matthew adds, "It'll get you every time."

"Redux Redux" is now playing in theaters.